The suspects were all born and raised French.
It would be so easy to file all this under "Islamic extremism" box and forget all about it, only it is not so simple.
Young men in Europe are gathering in gangs who praise lunatic beliefs and wish to drag all of us back into middle ages.

This was not about religion, just as Breivik was not about politics.
For me is about people growing crazy and mad and doing all kinds of crimes and then bring up all sorts of "justification" for the stupid things they do.

I am glad the French closed the deal before 18 hours, they know how to work.
It would be preferable to bring them to justice, IMHO, but things often don't work as well as I wish.
Generally speaking, Europe is vulnerable to all kind of violence against our civilization and way of life, and we need to keep an eye on disturbing symptoms when and where they arise.

They are a result of a failing system, a system that fails to put all of us to work, to have a meaningful life. A system that failed to integrate 'them' into our society and so on and so on. Since we live in a democracy, we are society, we choose the system, we all together have caused this. In a way. We haven't asked for this, we haven't caused it, but we haven't done enough to prevent it.

There are several who have been on video challenging us and cutting heads off captives. I am just guessing here but they may be giving us a clue.
They said they intended to conquer us. They did not intend to integrate into a democracy. A dictatorship is what will result. A dictatorship is great as long as the person in charge likes you but when he does not, you have no recourse to his demands.

A German guy called Jürgen Todenhöfer managed to infiltrate and live with ISIS for a while. He has reported some
of the goals from that group. They want to terminate all people with the wrong religion. This includes moderate Muslims,
atheists, polytheists (Hindu), Shia Muslims and so on.

Strangely enough, the only two religions that are considered worthy of living, are Jews and Christians, who only have to
pay an extra tax.

Jose,
The craziness did not start recently. I will quote a commentator I just saw online...

"Terrorism is both a complicated subject and a simple subject. It has its complexities, but there are also really bright red lines of moral differentiation that we must not blur. The recent events in Paris have made this clear.

I have a number of Muslim friends. I admire most of them. I respect all of them. They’ve shown me kindness, and we are like-minded in many ways.

But, at some point, given incident after incident, you do have to wonder what the nature of Islam really is. Is it a religion of peace, as we are so often told? Or is it a religion of violence?

There is also the very real possibility that, as happens often in many religions, those who claim to be adherents don’t really understand what their religion actually teaches. Their desire to justify their religion (probably the one they grew up with) overrides their willingness to look at it objectively. I’ve seen this constantly with Catholics, with evangelicals, with Mormons, with Jews, etc. as well. It is a feature of human nature.

And the cold hard facts are that Muhammad was a violent man. Yes, there were some circumstances surrounding some of his life that may have justified some of his violence (i.e. self-defense). But Islam has almost always been spread by the sword. When you look at Jesus, there is not a single example of violence where human life is put in danger, or injuries meted out. The life of Muhammad provides countless examples. And even though I’m sure he was legitimately defending himself on occasion, why did he begin engaging in conquest of the surrounding lands during his own lifetime? Some psycho claiming to do violence in the name of Jesus cannot cite even one example of Jesus doing the same (quite the opposite). The same is not true about Muhammad.

I would encourage everyone to look up the Encyclopedia of Wars, which is a compendium put together by scholars, listing, as best they can, many of the wars in human history. Contrary to the modern stereotypical myths that religion has caused most wars, this scholarly work conclusively shows this is a lie. (That was not their purpose, but the conclusion followed from the results of their survey.) They found that only 6 percent of wars were religiously motivated. The key fact, however, is that if you took out the wars instigated by the dar al-Islam (“the House of Islam”), that number plummeted even further, to 2 percent. Thus, in this survey, Islam alone was responsible for two-thirds of religiously instigated wars in world history. This fact is even more glaring when you consider that many of these wars took place when Islam was not nearly as widespread as it is today.

I’m still open to considering other positions on these issues. There are thoughtful Muslims out there, and I believe they need to be listened to. However, we must not avoid the salient point: We really need to cut political correctness out of our dialogue. It is a dialogue killer. If you can’t stand your feelings getting hurt or your opinions being contradicted, then don’t engage in serious conversations. The West is losing its ability to stand for anything because it refuses to dialogue honestly.

And it is precisely because all over the world thousands of people continue to die at the hands of those claiming to do so in the name of Islam that we need to have honest conversations right now. Not hot-headed conversations. Not paranoid or bombastic conversations. Honest conversations. Let there be no more delay.

Given recent events, it seemed only appropriate that we consider the words of the great 19th century Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville on Islam.

“I studied the Quran a great deal. I came away from that study with the conviction there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad. So far as I can see, it is the principal cause of the decadence so visible today in the Muslim world and, though less absurd than the polytheism of old, its social and political tendencies are in my opinion to be feared, and I therefore regard it as a form of decadence rather than a form of progress in relation to paganism itself.” (Letter to Arthur de Gobineau, Oct. 22, 1843)

De Tocqueville lived on the brink of a flowering age of democracy, and he knew it. He foresaw many great possibilities, but also many great dangers. Ultimately, however, he prophesied that Islam would be incompatible with such a world. We ought to consider his words in light of the fact that there is not one single bona fide democracy in the entire Islamic world today:

“Muhammad brought down from heaven and put into the Quran not religious doctrines only, but political maxims, criminal and civil laws, and scientific theories. The Gospels, on the other hand, deal only with the general relations between man and God and between man and man. Beyond that, they teach nothing and do not oblige people to believe anything. That alone, among a thousand reasons, is enough to show that Islam will not be able to hold its power long in ages of enlightenment and democracy, while Christianity is destined to reign in such ages, as in all others.” (“Democracy in America,” Book 1, Chapter 5)

I think it is a disaster to mix politics and religion, which is done in most muslim countries. The separation of the two could also be better in countries like USA, which have claimed to have God on its side in wars. The Middle East is however the worst region when it comes to mixing it. Until they can solve this issue, there will never be peace. Turkey could be a template of how it can be done for muslim counties. Israel has a very long way to go to get there.

I do not agree with the statement about Christianity being destined to reign in ages of enlightment. The Christian church has mosly been in conflict with scientific ideas for hundreds of years. Fortunately science has won most of these conflicts, although the progress seems to have gone backwards a bit lately in USA with regards to creationism.

I agree with most of what was said above.
"Sharia law" is not really a law, is what was used by ancient communities in the desert.

This is an eye opener about the freedom of speech, and why we don't want to live in a world where there are people deciding what others can print or write, let it be the muslims, the Pope or an elected committee. Each one has responsibility on what is printed, but that is another story.

Sometimes people forgets why we are where we are, with religion separated from the state, human and civil rights, and so on. And people often forgets those righhts are not granted, it took much fighting to conquer them and there are always someone wishing to suppress or remove them.

Also a word for the xenophobia, there are terrorists among us, and good people anywhere in the world, so no need really to close borders and segregate different people, that has nothing to do with it! OTOH, letting people in and out Syria and IS through Turkey is a complete different thing

And the fight against terrorism can be done near our houses, when the youth is let without hope of getting education and decent jobs and fair life opportunities, they can fall in all kinds of gangs, crime or terrorism. If the terrorist groups were not funded, they couldn't operate as they do and recruit so many vulnerable people. I see the clowns of Boko Haram riding new pick up trucks and armed to their teeth, all that costs money.

Jose,
Your realization that money is required to run a war of any kind raises the question about "who benefits?" from all the turmoil. Many will say that there could not be a conspiracy that could do this. Why not? Someone is benefitting from the conflict and are willing to pay for those new trucks.

QuoteBob in Everett
Jose,
Your realization that money is required to run a war of any kind raises the question about "who benefits?" from all the turmoil. Many will say that there could not be a conspiracy that could do this. Why not? Someone is benefitting from the conflict and are willing to pay for those new trucks.

Maybe the money is simply stolen, local government money that were supposed to be used for something more constructive.

QuoteBob in Everett
Jose,
Your realization that money is required to run a war of any kind raises the question about "who benefits?" from all the turmoil. Many will say that there could not be a conspiracy that could do this. Why not? Someone is benefitting from the conflict and are willing to pay for those new trucks.

Maybe the money is simply stolen, local government money that were supposed to be used for something more constructive.

I believe not. Who benefits, and who loses?

Have you recently noticed oil prices below $50? There are "ghost" tankers disappearing and reappearing transferring oil without passing through stock exchanges.
There are countries willing to support the chaos, and bring down oil prices to serve their agendas. Saudi Arabia and Israel profit from this, because compared to IS, if you dim the light they almost look like decent countries. China is loaded with money, they are the beacon of progress now.

In Nigeria complete cities are destroyed, children are used as suicide bombs. Cargo ships loaded with refugees arrive at Europe every day, and there is always more xenophobia and exploitation waiting them. They will join the vast mole of hopeless Europeans at the suburbs of larger cities and eventually some of them fall vulnerable to all kind of gangs and criminal activity. Or they just go crazy and depressed. I don't know who profits from the madness, but it should be fought from the route. To discover the crime, follow the money and search who profits.

QuoteJose Pinto
There are countries willing to support the chaos, and bring down oil prices to serve their agendas. Saudi Arabia and Israel profit from this, because compared to IS, if you dim the light they almost look like decent countries. China is loaded with money, they are the beacon of progress now.

I would think that Saudi Arabia are losing money due to low oil prices, just like Norway, since we export oil.

QuoteJose Pinto
There are countries willing to support the chaos, and bring down oil prices to serve their agendas. Saudi Arabia and Israel profit from this, because compared to IS, if you dim the light they almost look like decent countries. China is loaded with money, they are the beacon of progress now.

I would think that Saudi Arabia are losing money due to low oil prices, just like Norway, since we export oil.

Nope, current oil prices are still profitable to Middle east, not so much for Norway offshore rigs, and lead the "shale oil" business bankrupt.
Also Norway is not in the Euro zone, and can easily adjust to this price fluctuations, while we are hands and feet tied to the Euro.
For you, the single problem with cheap oil is imports will be more expensive.
OTOH, fish, wood and other exports will be sold higher in your home currency, for the same € or $.